Tom Ellis might only play Lucifer but he certainly has a devilish side. In this episode, he tells us about a prank that went horribly wrong.
Tom Ellis might only play Lucifer but he certainly has a devilish side. In this episode, he tells us about a prank that went horribly wrong.
Catherine Cohen Welcome to I Hate Talking About Myself. The podcast where the stars from Netflix series and films face off with the toughest interviewer of all: themselves. We write the questions and then our guests pick them out of our shiny glass bowl. This week we've got the devil himself on the pod. Drama. OK. I'm kidding. Tom Ellis only plays Lucifer on a TV show, Lucifer. But he wanted to catch up with them and ask some of our most burning questions. Burning? Get it? It's a pun about hell. Oh, my God. How funny is that? How funny is that? Anyways, here is Tom.
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Tom Ellis Hello, I'm Tom Ellis. And I hate talking about myself. All right, let's delve in here.
Tom Ellis If you could instantly become an expert in something, what would it be? I would become an expert in finance, I think, because I'm useless with money.
Tom Ellis So next question, where would you time travel to, year and place? I would time travel to somewhere... Well, at the moment, obsessed with The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and that period of time, the late 50s into the early 60s, is something that everyone always is very nostalgic about. And I think, gosh, that would have been a really fun time to live. It was postwar. The world was healing and there was no social media or mobile phones. Fantastic.
Tom Ellis What's your relationship with social media right now? I have a good relationship with social media. We get on rather well. I was never the biggest fan of social media when it first started. It's just not really something that I think about doing, picking up and, you know, writing things and taking photos. I like to sort of live in the moment a bit, but with work and everything, I appreciate that social media is a very powerful tool. In fact, I would not be sitting here right now if it weren't for social media. So I'm very thankful for it, but I'm also very wary of it.
Tom Ellis OK, next question. Who was the first famous person you met? Well, I'm obsessed with sport. And my dad, for a brief period of time was the chaplain to the local soccer team, which is a tiny little soccer team in the U.K. called Swindon Town. But for me, they were like huge celebrities. And he had to host the Christmas Carol concert at his church. And all the players turned up. And I met the manager at the time who was a guy called Ossie Ardiles, who was a famous Argentinian footballer. I was dumbstruck. There we go.
Tom Ellis What is the most memorable prank you've pulled off or has been pulled on you? So the most memorable prank I pulled off, it backfired a bit. I guess. I had just been working on a movie with lots of guys, basically lots of young men under the age of 25. And there was quite a lot of banter and pranking on this movie. But one of the pranks was at lunchtime. If there was any kind of dessert that involved custard or ice cream or anything like that, you'd ask someone, does that smell funny to you? And as they put their nose towards it, you slammed it in their face, which I thought was hilarious. So I went to my next job and there was a young runner on the job. And we've been having quite a laugh and stuff. And one day we had trifle for lunch. We had a really thick, creamy top on it. And my mischievous cogs started turning and I thought, oh, that was so funny before. It will be really funny now. So I waited on the dining bus and this girl walks in and I said to her, does this smell funny? And she put a hose towards the trifle and I slammed it in her face. It was really good. I mean, it was like, you know, she had to sort of break the crust by opening her eyes. It was a perfect slam. And I thought she was about to start laughing. And she burst into tears and ran off the dining bus. And everyone was deathly silent and looked at me and I felt terrible. And I had to grovel for about three days.
Tom Ellis What's the last picture you took on your phone? I don't have my phone with me, but I believe it's a screenshot of a comedian from the UK called Adam Buxton, who's got a podcast, and I couldn't believe what the little drawing of his face looked like because it looks more like me than my Bitmoji. So I had to take a screenshot of it.
Tom Ellis What is your biggest fear? I fear. Well, I fear lots of things. The current state of the world and the political climate, I fear and I also fear heights. I've never been great with them, but I get worse and worse as I get older. And I'm terrible with injections. I'm a big passer-outer. So there we go. Next question.
Tom Ellis What piece of pop culture shaped you the most. Ooh that is a good question? Popular culture? I mean, I really got into watching a lot of comedy when I was in my teenage years and at the time there was two people that really influenced me. One was Steve Coogan playing his character, Alan Partridge, and the other is Eddie Izzard, who is just one of the most genius stand ups I've ever seen. And both of them certainly influenced my sense of humor as I was growing up in my teenage years. Next question.
Tom Ellis What are the most recently used emojis on your phone and why? I think the most recently used emojis on my phone are definitely the purple devil face, which I've just kind of taken as my own for the last few years.
Lucifer Clip A devil emoji, that's who I'm speaking to, a copyright lawyer today.
Tom Ellis And that alongside a muscle arm, because I'll probably text Paolo, my trainer, more than everybody else. And that's how I sign off on my text to him. Sad, but true.
Tom Ellis And thank you, everybody, for listening to me talk about myself. It was hopefully not as excruciating for you as it was for me.
Catherine Cohen Thanks for speaking to us, Tom. Nothing is excruciating about the lovely British accent. And thank you, listeners, for tuning in this week. Subscribe now to get next week's ep automatically inside your cellular device. It's like magic. I Hate Talking About Myself is produced by Pineapple Street Studios and Netflix. Our music is by Hansdale Hsu, and it's hosted by me, Catherine Cohen. Bye.
Tom Ellis So here we go.